Dear Friends and Alumni,
We are kicking-off the 2017-2018 school year with this autumn issue of InForm after welcoming a large new class of BFA students, six MFA students, one PhD student and a visiting scholar from China. Twenty-five BFA and MFA dancers returned in late July to begin intensive rehearsals for our collaborative performance with BalletMet, Parallel Connections, produced by the Wexner Center for the Arts October 20 - 21. This features a Cunningham MinEvent created by professors Karen Eliot and Daniel Roberts, as well as Minus 16 by Ohad Naharin, performed by both Ohio State and BalletMet dancers. Our students are also busy rehearsing for an eclectic Faculty Concert of works including art installations and multi-media works by Ann Sofie Clemmensen, David Covey, Crystal Michelle Perkins, Daniel Roberts, Mitchell Rose and Edward Taketa. The pieces will showcase performances by BFA and MFA dance students.
We are pleased to be hosting Transmissions and Traces: Rendering Dance, the inaugural Dance Studies Association International Conference October 19 - 22. The Congress on Research in Dance and the Society of Dance History Scholars, the two largest international organizations for the field of dance studies, recently merged into the Dance Studies Association. With support from Ohio State departments and programs, the Department of Dance welcomes 350 dance scholars and researchers from across the field to present paper panels, roundtable discussions, lecture-demonstrations, and workshops addressing the question: How is dance transmitted? More information about the conference, including the conference schedule and registration information, is available at sdhscordconference.org.
In this issue of InForm, we highlight Visiting Assistant Professor Ann Sofie Clemmensen’s five-week study-abroad program in Denmark, where students performed, took classes and toured the country. We celebrate the well-deserved recognition of Associate Professor Melanye White Dixon and Academic Program Coordinator Amy Schmidt. We applaud Assistant Professor Hannah Kosstrin’s intrepid contribution to the field of dance studies in her new book, Honest Bodies: Revolutionary Modernism in the Dances of Anna Sokolow (Oxford University Press, 2017). And we showcase the exciting research that we continue to support with our Dance Preservation Fund.
To see more of what's coming up this year, please check out the events on our website. As always, we thank you for your continued support, and look forward to seeing you at one of our shows.
Susan Hadley
Chair
Department of Dance
